A Brief Overview of the Intellectual Property Branches

Patents, trademarks, and copyrights are three distinct kinds of intangible property, each of which serve different purposes and are uniquely tailored to protect the owner in a distinct manner.

Patents give an inventor the right to exclude others from making or selling an invention, design, or plant during the term of a patent. There are three kinds of patents: utility, design, and plant. A utility patent covers matter typically regarded by the public as “inventions” – new machines, processes, manufactures, compositions of matter, and improvements thereon. The utility patent covers the way such an apparatus would work, or may cover the apparatus itself. A design patent, in contrast, protects any new, original, and ornamental design, and is directed to the appearance of an article of manufacture. A plant patent can be in turn be obtained on a new variety of asexually reproducible plants.

A trademark relates to any word, name, symbol, or device that is used in trade with goods to indicate the source of the goods. It may additionally identify a business or the products produced by that business.